For Long Islanders, silence is not neutral

We are in a moral crisis in American life — one felt not only in Washington, but in our neighborhoods here on Long Island.

When the state's power is used in ways that spread fear among immigrant families, when protesters are injured by police without accountability, and when political leaders normalize dehumanizing language and confuse loyalty with truth, we have moved beyond ordinary political disagreement.

Moments like this demand moral clarity.

Different moments call forth different voices. Sometimes religious leaders speak pastorally — to comfort and console. Sometimes we speak pluralistically — to hold disagreement with humility. And sometimes we must speak prophetically — to name moral danger plainly.

Pluralism is my comfort zone. I recently published a book about it. But pluralism alone cannot bear the weight of this moment, when democracy, human dignity and pluralism itself feel at risk.

In Great Neck — one of the most religiously, culturally and politically diverse communities on Long Island — pluralism is not an abstract idea. It is daily life. It is neighbors with different histories, beliefs and politics learning how to share a common future.

On Long Island, immigrant families are not abstractions. They are classmates, business owners, health aides, construction workers and neighbors. Fear in immigrant communities does not remain contained there; it reshapes the moral climate of entire towns.

The biblical commandment "You shall not bear false witness" speaks not only to courts of law, but to public life.

In the legal realm, bearing false witness means lying about facts. In the moral realm, it means lying about what we believe God — or basic human decency — demands of us.

We bear false witness when, through endorsement or silence, we suggest that cruelty is acceptable or that the vulnerable do not matter.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote that the prophet is not someone who predicts the future, but someone who sees the present and refuses to accept it. Prophetic speech does not aim to soothe; it aims to disturb the moral conscience when the conscience has fallen asleep. It calls us to account when our silence has become a lie.

As the author Derek Penwell writes, "The part nobody says out loud is this: 'If I admit what I saw, I might have to change.'"

We tend to resist the prophetic critique not because the truth is unclear, but because it is costly. Because once we truly see, neutrality is no longer neutral, silence is no longer innocent, and complacency becomes complicity.

I understand why many Americans long for a gentler public discourse. But there are moments when the most responsible thing a religious leader — or any citizen — can say is simply this: What is happening in our country right now is wrong.

That conviction does not come easily to me. For much of my life, I identified as a Republican, sometimes enduring ridicule for doing so in religious circles. I value pluralism deeply and believe political disagreement is essential to democracy.

But moral clarity is not the opposite of pluralism. It is what protects pluralism when it is threatened. Communities like ours depend on a fragile but essential civic trust — the belief that disagreement does not erase dignity, and that power must always be exercised within moral limits.

In communities like Great Neck and across Long Island, the health of our democracy depends on whether ordinary people are willing to speak moral truth when it matters most.

This guest essay reflects the views of Rabbi A. Brian Stoller, the senior rabbi of Temple Beth-El of Great Neck.